Describing medical student curiosity across a four year curriculum: An exploratory study

Abstract

Background: Intellectual curiosity can be defined as a desire for knowledge that leads to exploratory behavior and consists of an inherent and stable trait (i.e. trait curiosity) and a variable context-dependent state (i.e. state curiosity). Although intellectual curiosity has been considered an important aspect of medical education and practice, its relationship to medical education has not been empirically investigated. The purpose of this exploratory study was to describe medical students’ intellectual curiosity across a four-year undergraduate program.

Methods: We employed a cross-sectional design in which medical students, across a four-year undergraduate program at McGill University, completed the Melbourne Curiosity Inventory as a measure of their state and trait intellectual curiosity. A Mixed Models ANOVA was used to compare students across year of training.

Results: Four hundred and two out of 751 students completed the inventory (53.5%). Trait curiosity was significantly higher than state curiosity (M = 64.5, SD = 8.5 versus M = 58.5, SD = 11.6) overall, and within each year of training.

Conclusions: This study is the first to describe state and trait intellectual curiosity in undergraduate medical education. Findings suggest that medical students’ state curiosity may not be optimally supported and highlight avenues for further research.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Meredith Young, Dr. Valerie Dory, Dr. Aliki Thomas, Dr. Carlos Gomez-Garibello, and Dr. Michael Hoover for their support in analyzing the study data, as well as all members of the McGill Centre for Medical Education, for consulting and advising on the design of this study. In addition, the authors would like to express our appreciation to Ms. Claudia Regier, Dr. Robert Primavesi, and the administrative staff of the undergraduate medical curriculum at McGill University for their help in collecting the data for this project.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Glossary

Intellectual curiosity: a desire for knowledge that leads to exploratory behavior and consists of both an inherent trait and a context-dependent state.

Berlyne DE. 1954. A theory of human curiosity. Br J Psychol. 45:180?191.

Naylor FD. 1981. A state-trait curiosity inventory. Aust Psychol. 16:172?183.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Robert Sternszus, is an assistant professor of pediatrics, and core faculty member, Centre for Medical Education, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Dr. Alenoush Saroyan, is a professor of education and counseling psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Dr. Yvonne Steinert, is a professor of family medicine and director, the Centre for Medical Education, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.